Numbers 8 and 9 are dead-on advice for the Charlottesville real estate market*. #10 is telling as well, particularly coming from one of the most disruptive forces in the real estate space in a decade.

8. Invest in the house, not marketing

â€¨There are two types of home-sellers, those seeking an agent who will â€œreally sell the houseâ€ and those same people who are later frustrated that their agent â€œdidn’t really do anythingâ€ to sell the house. After years of experimenting with postcards and fliers, my list of what makes a difference is shorter: overwhelmingly, the house itself; then pricing, staging and professional photos. Traffic to a listing declines four-fold after a week on market. An agent matters a lot, but almost entirely in preparing the property for a perfect debut. Invest in the house, and make it sparkle on day one. After that, all an agent can mostly do is wait, and reduce the price.

9. Err on the side of under-pricingâ€¨

If you have to choose between over-pricing and under-pricing your home, under-price. When you under-price by $10,000 and the home isn’t bid up, you lose $10,000 at most. When you over-price by $10,000, you can lose much more: after a month the listing loses its luster, mortgage and staging costs pile up, and price-reductions signal buyers to ask for more reductions.

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About Jim Duncan

I am a Realtor/Broker/Partner with Nest Realty in Charlottesville, Virginia. The goal of this site/blog remains unchanged in the nearly 10 years since its founding – to provide clear, coherent and unbiased analysis of the Charlottesville area real estate market.